Although I have been designing board games for friends and family since childhood, I would say I'm quite new to the board gaming world that most people who attend the likes of Essen Spiel know. I grew up playing the classics (Chess, Monopoly, Game of Life, Uno and more), but it wasn't until about 3 years ago when a friend introduced me to a whole new world of board games - Catan, Hanabi, Azul, Sagrada and more - that I really knew what was possible!
When I started designing board games in more detail 2020, I was still just doing it for myself and my friends and family, as a way to cure boredom during lockdown. They all encouraged me to do more with the games I was coming up with - to share them with the wider world, and that is where YNC Games was really born.
So, what are my thoughts on the journey so far? To be honest, it has been a mix of enjoyable, freeing, exciting, overwhelming and daunting, but overall, very, very satisfying. The feeling of being able to pay 100% of my energy into designing something, and the feeling of each completed milestone is so fulfilling, it is what keeps me going. I say 'overwhelming' and 'daunting' because at the beginning someone told me "designing board games is the easy part", and I now know what they mean - it's the part that comes to you naturally, almost feeling effortless at times. But it's the all the other admin and project management around the game and owning a business that takes a lot of time and effort - from learning about shorthand for printing to trying to understand shipping and customs costs to figuring out how to fulfil shipments to customers! But first, you need to know what on earth you need to know about! There's a lot to learn, but to me that is also what makes it interesting - sure I would love to spend all of my time designing, but it is truly incredible looking back at what I have learnt, and also the journey that still lies ahead.
The beautiful part about working in this industry is that way that others have welcomed me into it with open arms! The time that people spent talking to me at Essen Spiel (see next post), offering me tips and advice is invaluable, and I know once I'm in the same position, I look forward to passing on my knowledge to others too. I intend to create a blog category here called "The Process", where I will document what I think are the steps to take to becoming a board game designer and publisher. Let me know in the comments if there are any particular topics you would like me to cover.
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